A question of taste: John Creedon

JOHN CREEDON presents a music show on RTÉ Radio 1 weeknights from the RTÉ Cork studios, and also the Fleadh Cheoil series on RTÉ One television on Fridays at 7.30pm.

Best recent book: I read very little fiction, it’s mostly biographies, philosophy, local history and folklore. There are bedside books that I return to over and over again like The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, Tao Te Ching by Lao tzu , The Cork Anthology edited by Sean Dunne and I’ll always have a special place for Pancho & Lefty Ride Out by Cónal Creedon. At Christmas I received a hard-back copy of Three Centuries of Irish Art (Crawford Art Gallery Collection). At last, a work by work guide to the treasure trove in the Crawford Art Gallery collection that has fascinated me since I first discovered it as a young fella rambling around the city centre with my mates.

Occasionally, I’ll still slip through the wrought iron railings on Emmet Place to wonder at the genius of James Barry, Walter Osborne William Orpen, Séamus Murphy and Jack B Yeats. Seán Keating’s ‘Economic Pressure’ or ‘A Bold Peasant Being Destroyed’ is a heart rending scene of emigration from Ireland in the 1940’s. His ‘Men of the South’, a romantic and heroic depiction of the North Cork Brigade in the 1920s, still intrigues me.